Heartwarming moment a dog stuck down a mine shaft for ELEVEN DAYS is rescued by firefighters and reunited with her family

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Echo the coonhound is back with her loving family nearly two weeks after she went missing down a Missouri mine shaft.

The pup accidentally entered an old system of mining tunnels in the Sodalis Nature Preserve outside Hannibal, Missouri and became lost in the dark underground passages.

Soon after being discovered, a rescuer was lowered down on a rope, and lifted the dog to safety. In the video of her rescue, Echo can be seen looking up the shaft at her rescuers and whining.

Echo, a coonhound from Missouri, was trapped in a mine shaft for eleven days in the Sodalis Nature Preseve near Hannibal

The local fire department had to use equipment to lwe

Local parks and recreation staffer Mary Lynne Richards discovered the dog. When she wasn't able to rescue it herself, she called the local fire department, who brought the pup back up to surface level.

'They set up this great big operation. It was quite impressive,' said Richards to Hannibal.net. 'It was like something you would see on TV. It was pretty exciting.' 

After a three-hour rescue from the local fire department, Echo was back in the arms of her family

Jeff Bates, the dog's owner, had reported the dog missing to police days earlier. 

When he found out that someone had found a dog in the mine shafts, Jeff and his son went to the scene, where they were able to confirm that it was indeed Echo that was trapped.

After a three-hour rescue process, Echo was happily back with her family. The shaft that Echo was rescued from was then covered with a protective grate to avoid similar incidents in the future.

It's still not clear how the dog got into the mine shaft in the first place.

It's not exactly clear how Echo (above with her owners) got into the mine, but the opening has since been covered to prevent similar incidents from happening